The Fort Dix years: A prison mate’s window on Cianci

It didn’t take long for Charles “Wolf” Kennedy, a longtime organized crime associate and convicted international drug trafficker, to find a new friend at Fort Dix, a federal prison in New Jersey.

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By
W. Zachary Malinowski
Posted Aug. 30, 2014 @ 10:27 pm

In June, Vincent A. "Buddy" Cianci Jr. stunned the Rhode Island political world by announcing that, once again, he was running as an independent for mayor of Providence. On Nov. 4, he will face the winner of the Sept. 9 Democratic primary and Republican Daniel S. Harrop III.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — It didn’t take long for Charles “Wolf” Kennedy, a longtime organized crime associate and convicted international drug trafficker, to find a new friend at Fort Dix, a federal prison in New Jersey.

A few days after he was transferred from another federal prison in Allenwood, Pa., Kennedy reported to mail call after the 4 p.m. standing head count. It’s a time that every inmate relishes — when they receive mail from friends and family, along with newspapers, magazines and receipts showing that money has been placed in their prison accounts.

Kennedy spotted Vincent A. “Buddy” Cianci Jr., waiting in line and getting a large sack of mail, more mail than the other 2,500 inmates in the West Side of the prison compound. Cianci, serving time for racketeering conspiracy, noticed that Kennedy, like him, had a subscription to The Providence Journal.

“Where are you from? Providence?” Cianci asked.

Said Kennedy: “I’m from Warwick, where I grew up.”

Cianci, a twice-convicted felon, who served as Providence mayor for more than 20 years, asked Kennedy if he was related to former state Sen. Gloria Kennedy Fleck.

“She is my sister,” Kennedy answered.

Cianci was in a league of his own when it came time for mail delivery in prison. He received The Providence Journal, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Providence Phoenix — and scores of letters. Kennedy said the other convicted criminals grew tired of hearing the mail delivery man repeatedly cry, “Cianci, Cianci, Cianci.”

He said that a prison guard once quipped that Cianci should have “his own ZIP code.”

‘The Ghost’

Kennedy, on the other hand, was convicted of running an international cocaine and marijuana network from his house on South County Trail in East Greenwich. The ring had ties to California and Florida and his drug suppliers were from Colombia and Mexico.

Law enforcement officials in Rhode Island nicknamed Kennedy “The Ghost,” for using counter-surveillance and successfully eluding federal, state and local authorities for years. In prison, other inmates called him “Wolf” because he had photographs in his cell of six pure-bred wolves that once roamed his property in Rhode Island.

Back in the ’70s and ’80s, Kennedy ran with Gerard T. Ouimette, a notorious organized crime figure, and one of the few prisoners in the nation serving life without parole in the federal prison system. He said that he traveled with Ouimette to New York City and visited John Gotti, the boss of the Gambino crime family at his house and at the Bergen Hunt & Fish Club, Gotti’s social club in the Ozone section of Queens.

In the late ’80s and early ’90s, Kennedy turned to drug trafficking and prosecutors contended that he ran a $1-million distribution network. He also hosted wild parties at his house in East Greenwich with strippers, cocaine and plenty of booze. He said prominent defense lawyers and politicians regularly dropped in as well.

Kennedy also said that he had a stocked trout pond on his 3-acre property where his friends, including Joseph Bevilacqua, the former Providence lawyer who is also a twice-convicted felon, would cast their lines.

Friendship with Cianci

In the federal prison system, Kennedy underwent extensive diesel therapy, meaning that he was frequently transferred to other facilities. He spent time in Fort Devens, Mass., with Joe Pannone, former head of the Providence Board of Tax Assessment Review, and Frank E. Corrente, Cianci’s former director of administration. He also served time at the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, and in federal prisons in Coleman, Fla., Allenwood, Pa., Fort Dix, N.J., and Milan, Mich.

Kennedy said that Cianci had accepted his fate and, unlike Pannone at Fort Devens, would not “whine” about spending years behind bars.

Immediately after mail call, Cianci told Kennedy to “stop in,” and visit the two-man cell he shared with Oscar, a convicted drug trafficker from Colombia. Kennedy said Oscar was “a great guy,” who made sure the cell was kept spotless.

Kennedy called Cianci’s quarters an “oasis” compared to the dormitory where he lived with 15 other prisoners.

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Cianci and Kennedy quickly struck up a friendship. They had coffee in the morning, watched CNN news and frequently ate lunch together. Kennedy visited Cianci nearly every day during his six months at Fort Dix.

At one point, a beige windbreaker that Cianci liked to wear with his prison-issued khakis was lost or stolen. Kennedy searched and found a replacement jacket.

“There are no stains on this jacket,” Kennedy told Cianci. The two felons broke out in laughter.

Kennedy’s joke was a reference to a line that Cianci made to reporters in April 2001 after his indictment on 27 federal corruption charges. “I said before there are no stains on this jacket, and there are still no stains on this jacket…,” Cianci said at the time.

Cianci, in a telephone interview Friday, acknowledged his relationship with Kennedy. He said that he was intelligent and well-informed on national and international news. He also said that he knew Kennedy’s sister, Gloria.

“I knew him,” said Cianci, now 73. “He was a good guy and respected by the inmates. In prison, you can’t call them friends. You don’t really get close to someone because two days later, they are gone.”

R.I. connections

The two inmates would banter about all things Rhode Island. Both men loathed Joseph Bevilacqua. Kennedy had once been friends with Bevilacqua, but they had had a falling out. Cianci had no love for Bevilacqua after he provided WJAR-Channel 10 reporter Jim Taricani with a videotape showing Frank Corrente, Cianci’s top aide, accepting a cash bribe from Tony Freitas, a Providence businessman who cooperated with the federal authorities.

Taricani broadcast the videotape on television. Bevilacqua and Taricani were convicted of crimes for violating a court order that barred public release of evidence in the case.

Kennedy said that Cianci would also rail against David N. Cicilline, his successor as mayor and now a U.S. congressman, referring to him as “The Evil Elf.” The former mayor also would bad-mouth former Providence Journal reporter, Mike Stanton, who wrote “The Prince of Providence,” an exhaustive look at Cianci’s life that ended up as a New York Times bestseller.

Kennedy liked Stanton and referred to him as “Jimmy Olson,” the cub reporter in Superman.

Window on Cianci

In prison, Cianci also was gearing up for his return on WPRO-AM, the talk radio show. Kennedy said that he talked about his future on radio as his prison term was drawing to an end. His co-host, Ron St. Pierre, used to visit Cianci at Fort Dix and discuss their future plans for the show.

Kennedy said that Cianci worked nights in the prison library and, unlike many of the inmates, wasn’t interested in exercise. He remembered seeing the mayor in the television room one night after returning from a walk on the prison grounds.

“There he was sitting side-by-side amid criminals of every nationality, age, color and criminal convictions,” Kennedy said. “I was struck in just how strangely awkward he appeared and how far down he had indeed fallen.”

Cianci had a hard time with prison life when he first arrived. Another organized crime associate at Fort Dix told The Journal in 2003 about a group of prisoners watching Rudolph Giuliani, the former federal prosecutor, on “60 Minutes.” Cianci boasted that he was friends with Giuliani, a remark that was not well-received at Fort Dix. Many of the inmates had been prosecuted by Giuliani and were locked up because of him.

Kennedy confirmed that many prisoners were leery of Cianci because he had once been a state prosecutor in Rhode Island.

Out of prison

Cianci was released from Fort Dix on May 30, 2007, and he moved to a halfway house in Boston. Kennedy was sent to a federal prison in Milan, Mich., where he completed the final 16 months of his 14-year sentence. He was released in July 2009.

A few years ago, Kennedy drove to Foxwoods casino in Ledyard, Conn., with Tony Fiore, an old friend and mob associate who had spent years in federal prison for participating in a string of armored car robberies.

They bumped into Cianci and St. Pierre, who were broadcasting live for WPRO radio. Kennedy stopped by and said hello, but the former mayor had no time for him. He said that he had to hustle back to the microphone for his afternoon show.